The contents of the interiors of truck beds are often cluttered, disorganized, and not readily accessible. Most truck beds are loaded by lifting objects over the side rails of the bed or by placing the load onto the lowered tail gate and then by sliding it further into the vehicle. Such loading and unloading also requires extensive walking around the back and sides of the vehicle to enable loading the entire truck bed. Some climbing into and out of the truck bed can also be necessary. In both cases the ability to organize the contents of the bed is poor and inefficient.
To facilitate truck bed storage, the prior art provides the ability to place loads into the truck bed within containers and drawers, storing and keeping the contents organized. This helps the user access the load from the truck bed through the use of drawers and cabinet doors which protect the contents from the outside environment.
At best, such prior art containers and drawers organize the truck bed somewhat, but the user is left to continue loading the truck bed in a manner which is very similar to the method by which the user loads a truck bed without the storage device. Besides lifting items over the side rails of the bed in order to place them into a compartment, the interior contents often cannot be readily accessed and the deeper interior of the bed remains unused due to inaccessibility. Furthermore, often loading the bed requires multiple walking trips around the vehicle to load all side compartments properly.
Other, chassis mounted storage systems can provide more access but they require the user to remove the entire truck bed in order to lower the level of the compartments. Besides, this system is considered unattractive and does not eliminate the need to walk around the vehicle to facilitate loading. Further there is no simple opportunity to remove the chassis mounted storage systems if a user desires to use the truck to haul a load on occasion.
Accordingly, a need exists for a storage system which can be movable from a first position contained within a truck bed and a second deployed position where storage cabinets are moved out of the truck bed in position for ready access at a single working location. Such a system should be easy to operate both to deploy and to simply return the cabinets.